[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 177 (Thursday, November 9, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2150-E2152]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        SPEECHES BY NICARAGUAN PRESIDENT VIOLETA B. de CHAMORRO

                                 ______


                           HON. AMO HOUGHTON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 9, 1995

  Mr. HOUGHTON. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to testify before 
the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on a matter near 

[[Page E 2151]]
and dear to my heart--the state of democracy in Nicaragua.
  President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who is a dear friend to me and 
my wife Priscilla, visited our country in September and delivered two 
speeches--one at the Department of Commerce, and another at the Center 
for Democracy. I'd like to submit the text of those speeches into the 
record, and ask that my colleagues take a look at them.
  Mr. Speaker, I testified before the subcommittee to emphasize that 
Nicaragua is well along in the process of turning itself around. Are 
there problems in Nicaragua? Absolutely. It has only been 5 years under 
Democratic rule. The road is still long. There will never be an 
absolute destination. But under the leadership of President Violeta 
Chamorro, Nicaragua has undergone wrenching changes of which any one of 
us would be proud.

                 Speech Before the Center for Democracy

       Mr. Kelly, President of the Board of Directors of the 
     Center for Democracy, Professor Allen Weinstein, President 
     and Executive Director of the Center for Democracy, Members 
     of the Government of the United States of America, Honorable 
     Senators and Representatives, friends: I would like to thank 
     you for your invitation to share with you this evening in the 
     celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Center for 
     Democracy. I would like to express to you my sincere 
     recognition for all the support you have given the democratic 
     process in my country. This support has included observing 
     the historic elections of February 25, 1990 and supporting 
     the National Assembly on legislative matters.
       I am thrilled to be at this forum, where dialogue is 
     practiced and promoted with the joint action of parties and 
     countries that favor both democracy and the well-being of the 
     persons of the world.
       The Center for Democracy is expanding the frontiers of 
     freedom in diverse continents, helping societies in 
     transition build a legal framework based on the Rule of Law 
     and a market economy. I can tell you that Nicaragua is one of 
     these examples.
       Building democracy in Nicaragua has been a very difficult 
     and misunderstood task. Upon beginning my presidential 
     mandate on April 25, 1990, I found a country that was 
     destroyed by war, a result of the ideological imposition that 
     the Sandinista Government attempted in my country.
       Our democratic transition took place in the midst of 
     weapons. I found any army of more than 90,000 members facing 
     another 22,000 combatants. The civilian population had more 
     than 200,000 weapons of war in its possession at that time. 
     Exile, imprisonment and confiscations of goods were the means 
     with which to confront the opposition to democracy. Freedom 
     of the press and political rights were suppressed. I 
     inherited a collapsed economy. State centralization 
     practically did away with the initiative of the citizenry and 
     the benefits of a free market. Under the economic model of 
     the Sandinista decade, the State took over commerce, banking, 
     insurance and production. The result was an economic 
     regression that took us back to the 1940s, and left us an 
     enormous foreign debt, one of the highest in the world in 
     relative terms. Rationing cards, weekly 
     devaluations, confiscations and long lines at supply 
     centers were coupled with the lack of liberties and 
     because the main symbols of that time. As part of this sad 
     outlook, we Nicaraguans inherited a culture of violence. 
     Dialogue had been the absent protagonist in our history.
       My first mission as President was to reestablish public 
     liberties, abolish compulsory military service and foster a 
     true reconciliation and unity among the Nicaraguan family in 
     order to heal the wounds of war.
       Today, political debate takes the place of gunshots, our 
     Branches of Government are truly independent and we have 
     managed to subordinate military authority to civilian 
     authority. The gigantic army I inherited has been transformed 
     to a force of 14,000 people, the smallest in Central America. 
     We have approved a new Military Code that establishes the 
     national and apolitical nature of the army. For the first 
     time in the history of our nation, a head of the army 
     abandoned the post peacefully. We took the school textbooks 
     that taught addition by means of weapons and tanks and 
     replaced them with books espousing civilian and patriotic 
     principles. Many military installations were transformed into 
     schools and universities.
       The reconciliation, that I do not tire of asking from the 
     Nicaraguan people, has allowed us to incorporate in the 
     National Police, militants of the former Nicaraguan 
     Resistance. The armed and security forces that formerly 
     carried the name of the Sandinista party, today have become 
     the National Army and National Police. Thousands of weapons 
     that previously were in the hands of civilians have been 
     recovered, destroyed and buried.
       Economic reforms have put an end to a Centralist State. 
     Private initiative has assumed the role and the challenges 
     that make it the main agent of development. Since 1991, 10 
     new private banks, one Stock Exchange and one Commodities 
     Exchange have been established in our country in a show of 
     confidence and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Nicaraguan 
     people. Three hundred fifty private enterprises, which 
     constituted close to 30 percent of the Gross Domestic 
     Product, have been privatized. We have been successful in 
     eliminating the hyperinflation we inherited and in 
     maintaining one-digit levels in price increases. We have also 
     reduced our foreign debt or restructured it to increasingly 
     more flexible terms.
       Given the conditions of poverty I inherited, we are 
     concentrating our efforts on children and women, who carry 
     most of the family burden in our country. I have given 
     special priority to primary education and preventive health, 
     while integrating community participation and that of 
     civilian society in these tasks.
       I would like to clearly underscore that Nicaragua today has 
     an economy with great potential. For the first time in 11 
     years, our Gross Domestic Product grew by 3.3 percent in 1994 
     and this year we will have a greater increase. Nicaragua now 
     has appropriate and firm legislation for the protection of 
     foreign investments. We have subscribed to bilateral 
     treaties for the promotion of investment with different 
     countries, including the United States of America.
       These important achievements have only been possible thanks 
     to the solidarity we have found in friendly countries that 
     have not deserted us. I would like to especially acknowledge 
     the broad bipartisan support that the United States has shown 
     us. By such support, you understood that democracy in 
     Nicaragua is irreversible. Those who compare the Nicaragua of 
     the past with the Nicaragua of today, transformed as it is by 
     democracy, may appreciate how costly it has been to arrive to 
     where we are today. We need to continue receiving support for 
     our democratic process in order to meet the great challenges 
     that face our society today. We will continue strengthening 
     our economic development, confronting absolute poverty and 
     perfecting our democratic institutions.
       Upon completing my term, on January 10, 1997, I would like 
     to leave the property issue resolved, which is one of the 
     most difficult and complex problems that I inherited from the 
     previous regime. The property issue affected more than 
     170,000 families and close to 25 percent of the arable land 
     in Nicaragua. Today I can tell you that we have taken 
     significant steps to finding solutions to this situation.
       My dear friends, we Nicaraguans are entering a new era in 
     our history. We are heading toward an electoral process in 
     1996 that will enable us to take one of the most important 
     steps in the consolidation of democracy. The challenge we 
     face is to preserve peace, strengthen justice and the rule of 
     law and further establish economic and social development, 
     eliminating extreme poverty and fighting unemployment. Only 
     absolutely free and honest elections can lead us to a true 
     consolidation of democracy. I call on the international 
     community to support us in the diverse aspects of the 
     elections we will be holding towards the end of 1996. We are 
     confident that we will continue to count on the support of 
     the United States and the leaders of the Center for 
     Democracy.
       I would like to conclude by saying that the bipartisan 
     consensus that the Center for Democracy has promoted in 
     relation to Nicaragua has not been in vain. This celebration 
     of the Tenth Anniversary of the Center for Democracy is also 
     a source of great pride and satisfaction for my country. I 
     would like to offer you a simple yet significant gift of a 
     destroyed weapon, which symbolizes the peace and 
     reconciliation of Nicaragua. May God bless the friendship 
     between our two peoples. Thank you very much.
                                                                    ____


                 Remarks at the Department of Commerce

            (By Her Excellency Violeta Barrios de Chamorro)

       Allow me Mr. Brown to thank you for your kind invitation to 
     participate in this breakfast and the opportunity to exchange 
     viewpoints on some areas of common interest.
       During the last few years, Central America has been making 
     impressive progress in the opening up of its framework of 
     trade and its economies. In fact, the reduction of tariffs, 
     the elimination of non-tariff barriers, economic 
     deregulation, improvements in the framework of investment 
     policies and progress in the protection of intellectual 
     property rights, among others, are contributing to the 
     perfection of our instruments of integration.
       In this context, it is important to highlight accession of 
     all Central American countries to the World Trade 
     Organization, a commitment that will bring regional trade 
     norms into line with the disciplines that govern 
     international trade. This development also represents a 
     fundamental step in the creation of the Americas Free Trade 
     Zone, which is the objective we established for ourselves in 
     the Summit of the Americas held in Miami in 1994.
       This set of policies and actions is contributing to a 
     better commercial growth in the region; in 1994 intra-
     regional trade surpassed the historic levels reached in the 
     last decade. Our principal trade partner is the United 
     States, on the export as well as import levels, thanks to the 
     Caribbean Basin Initiative.
       This success notwithstanding, with the emergence of NAFTA, 
     the region together with the Caribbean countries perceives 
     potential disadvantages as a result of a diversion of trade 
     and investment. For this reason, we support initiatives that 
     promote NAFTA parity and we support free access of our 
     products, which today face restrictions.
       Although our commercial relations show important growth, 
     they are not necessarily a reflection of the flow of 
     investment. I therefore, consider that we must redouble our 
     efforts to promote the potentials of investment in Central 
     America.

[[Page E 2152]]

       When Mr. Pablo Pereira, our Minister of the Economy and 
     Development, returned from the Meeting of Ministers in 
     Denver, he reported to me in detail on two events of special 
     importance to our country that took place in that city.
       (1) The signing of Bilateral Investment Treaty between the 
     United States and Nicaragua.
       (2) A working session with you where we responded to your 
     initiative of holding a Forum on Trade and Investment at the 
     Central American level with an invitation to stage such a 
     Forum in Managua.
       I now have the pleasure of reiterating that invitation to 
     you and to tell you that in Nicaragua we will welcome you, 
     your assistants and the important business people that 
     accompany you, with open arms.
       From the outset, we believe this event will be important, 
     not only to give the Bilateral Investment Treaty its own 
     dimension, but also to provide a magnificent opportunity to 
     examine, within a Central American context, concrete 
     perspectives on trade and investment between our subregion 
     and the United States.
       In this same vein of ideas, allow me to suggest the 
     creation of a U.S.-Central America Business Development 
     Council, a body that will promote business ties, providing 
     the private sector with the major role befitting it in our 
     societies.
       Mr. Brown, distinguished guests, Central America is a 
     region that has abandoned war and violence and has initiated 
     the irreversible consolidation of its democracies. I am proud 
     to point out that, toward the end of next year, we will hold 
     in Nicaragua, the fairest, most free elections in our 
     history. These elections will mean a political transition 
     without interruption, guaranteeing our democracy. 
     Pacification, reconciliation and development have been the 
     central themes of my Government, under the difficult 
     circumstances I have had to govern.
       In my country we put an end to the hyperinflation of the 
     1980s, launched a highly successful process of privatization, 
     reduced the foreign debt and made considerable progress in 
     the solution of the property issue inherited by my 
     Government. We also began an intensive process of export 
     diversification and, in general, have laid the groundwork for 
     a better transformation of production with economic and 
     social equity. Nicaragua is a stable country, currently open 
     to foreign investment and willing to gradually assume the 
     responsibilities imposed by economic globalization and 
     international competition. Our convictions, our principles, 
     as well as our laws grant complete security and protection to 
     foreign investment.
       I invite the American business people to discover 
     Nicaragua. Here, among us, we have examples of business 
     people and businesses that know that in our country in 
     particular, and Central America in general, significant 
     opportunities for trade and investment are taking place.
       Come to Nicaragua, Come to Central America, we are waiting 
     for you.

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